Baker Academic

Saturday, November 29, 2014

The Weekly Standard on Jesus' Wife

Journalist Charlotte Allen surveys the latest farce by Simcha Jacobovici. She helpfully reminds us of the prolific imagination that produced the book:

Jacobovici’s The Exodus Decoded (2006), produced by James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar), claimed to have located the Ark of the Covenant, among other artifacts. Another Jacobovici documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus (2007), asserted that a collection of ancient ossuaries, or bone-boxes, found in Jerusalem once contained the bones of Jesus and various members of his family, including a son and a “Mary” who Jacobovici argued was the Magdalene. Jacobovici’s The Nails of the Cross (2011) claimed to have located Jesus’ crucifixion nails—or at least something close. His The Jesus Discovery (2012) argued that squiggles on yet another Jerusalem ossuary spelled out the story of Jonah and the whale, which early Christians regarded as a prefiguring of Jesus’ resurrection. Jacobovici deemed the first-century ossuary to be the “earliest Christian artifact,” but most New Testament scholars were unable to see much more than decorative lines on the bone-box.

I was interviewed for this article, as was Mark Goodacre. Unlike my interview with Maclean's, I'm happy to commend this piece as an apt survey of the current state of affairs. I will point out, however, that none of what I said about Jesus' stances against traditional family values, wealth, or the fiscal collectivism of early Christianity made it into the article. Go figure.

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Le Donne, Keith, Pitre, Crossley, Jacobi, Rodríguez

James Crossley (PhD, Nottingham) is Professor of Bible, Society, and Politics at St. Mary's University, Twickenham, London. In addition to most things historical Jesus, his interests typically concern Jewish law and the Gospels, the social history of biblical scholarship, and the reception of the Bible in contemporary politics and culture. He is co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Christine Jacobi studied protestant theology and art history in Berlin and Heidelberg. She is research associate at the chair of exegesis and theology of the New Testament and apocryphal writings. She completed her dissertation at the Humboldt-University of Berlin in 2014. She is the author of Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus? Analogien zwischen den echten Paulusbriefen und den synoptischen Evangelien (BZNW 213), Berlin: de Gruyter 2015. Christine Jacobi is a member of the „August-Boeckh-Antikezentrum“ and the „Berliner Arbeitskreis für koptisch-gnostische Schriften“.

Chris Keith (PhD, Edinburgh) is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity and Director of the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London.

Anthony Le Donne (PhD, Durham) is Associate Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary. He is the author/editor of seven books. He is the co-founder of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue and Sacred Texts Consultation and the co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Brant Pitre (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. Among other works, he is the author of Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile (Mohr-Siebeck/Baker Academic, 2005), and Jesus and the Last Supper (Eerdmans, 2015). He is particularly interested in the relationship between Jesus, Second Temple Judaism, and Christian origins.

Rafael Rodríguez (PhD, Sheffield) is Professor of New Testament at Johnson University. He has published a number of books and essays on social memory theory, oral tradition, the Jesus tradition, and the historical Jesus, as well as on Paul and Pauline tradition. He also serves as co-chair of the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media section of the Society of Biblical Literature.

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Jesus and the Last Supper

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Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance and Text